The Arts

Jim Shaw’s work has always impressed me with it’s conceptual rigor, but perplexed me with it’s technical slumming. I mean, the guy has some real drawing chops, but he keeps making these teenagey, comic book drawings. We talked about it when he made studio visits in grad school. I remember Jim telling me stories about the work he was doing in animation studios in LA to make ends meet. Maybe his (frankly ugly) drawing style had to do with that bad-boy rebelling (a theme throughout his work) I was thinking that would never be me; neither the bad-boy, nor the animator. But then I found out how much the studios paid! Good-golly, that boy was smart! Thanks Jim:

P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center is pleased to present the U.S. museum premiere of Jim Shaw’s large-scale installation The Donner Party (2003). This ambitious work most directly references the Donner Party’s ill-fated 1846 journey across the Sierra Nevada mountains in which they were caught in a blizzard and resorted to cannibalism. The installation contains a plethora of other references as well, to historical figures, religious movements, popular culture, and, pointedly, to Judy Chicago’s 1979 installation The Dinner Party. The exhibition will be on view in the Third Floor Main Gallery from May 24 through September 24, 2007. –PS 1 Press Release

more here

I haven’t seen the show yet, but anyone who uses the term ‘Badass’ in their title gets my attention–mostly because I used the same term in a show last year when I installed the first of a three-part project titled, "Badass Motherf***ers of the American West" at the OK Hotel in Seattle. (yes, this is blatant self-promotion)

Be sure to check out "Disconnects" at the McLeod Residence on Friday and let me know what you think of the work of Mason and McNeff, and any other interesting artists in the show for that matter…

"A Brief History of Outlaws: Portraits of the American Badass is a series of seven digital prints by Salah Mason and Maceo McNeff. These mixed-media digital collages use a combination of photographs and illustrations to depict the evolution of the American anti-hero. Brooklyn’s Mason and McNeff have created a tribute to the folklore of real criminals, not the hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold or the handsome tough guys from movies."

read more HERE

This week on Tyler Green’s Modern Art Notes, he has put out a challenge to bloggers to share their own take on the idea of Paintings That Rhyme. He kicked things off with his own take, looking at an 1887 trompe l’oeil painting by George Cope titled Civil War Regalia of Major Levi Gheen McCauley, which made him think about Marsden Hartley’s Portrait of a German Officer, 1914.

It’s a fun and creative way to get back to actually writing about art, rather than art world politics, finances and scandals. I’m pretty sure it’s also a not-so-subtle comment on the recent art thievery debates, the most public being the Hirst/Precious spat in LA.

Maybe not, but I like to think Tyler is intentionally (and playfully) pointing us to a much more interesting aspect of all this; semiotics. That’s right, the good, old-fashioned joy of reading ‘texts’. It’s brilliant, actually.

From where I’m sitting, Tyler’s ‘rhymes’ are about how pictures speak to each other, but more importantly, how they speak to us.

Briefly oversimplifying Semiotics 101, a picture can be seen as a ‘text’ made up of ‘signs’. A sign is simply a single unit of a text (so if we look at a picture of a horse let’s say, each element in that picture or text is a sign; the horse, rider, ground, sky, tree, bird, rock, cloud, and on and on. And by the way, semiotics considers most things texts – pictures, sculptures, films, houses, people, places…just about everything actually. Oh, and books too.) Anyway, we are constantly in the process of reading texts by decoding the signs. We do this naturally through the simultaneous processes of ‘denotation’ and ‘connotation’. And here is where we get back to Tyler’s ‘rhymes.

Looking at the picture of the horse, the rider, as a sign, carries a denotation, as in the most basic idea of ‘the rider’–male, young, caucasian etc. The rider, as a sign, also carries a connotation, which is all the things ‘the rider’ may suggest–rich, spoiled, mean, bully, class struggle, suffering, injustice, death etc. Denotation and connotation take place simultaneously and automatically. They are also both subject to the unique views of each individual. And while each sign’s denotation may be relatively easy to name within a given social milleaux, it’s connotation varies wildly from individual to individual. And it is in the process of connotation that we finally get to Tyler’s ‘rhymes’.

Take for example, I recently saw Baldesarri’s Stonehenge in Green:

which made me think of Davie Salle’s Sextant in Dogtown:

which made me think of Buren’s Palais Royale for some reason, those circles maybe:

then this by Monet:

which, of course led me to one of my favorite of all time:

which came full circle to Nan Goldin here:

and on and on it goes.

Looked at this way, every picture rhymes. Try it! I’m going to do more. Thanks Tyler…

d.

If you still haven’t checked out her work, don’t miss Marnie at Patrick Painter this month where she debuts her new project, "Sing Me a Western Song".

Besides creating some of the most beautiful/creepy art on the scene today, don’t you think she’s looking hotter than ever, particularly because that is NOT a Diet Coke in her hand…

(photo by Doug Harvey, who also rocks)